


Tide

by StAnni



Category: The OA (TV)
Genre: Angst and Feels, M/M, Underage Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-09 16:58:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18642274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StAnni/pseuds/StAnni
Summary: And then Buck doesn’t say anything at all and the darkness filling up the car is drowning him, them, and all hope of whatever could have been.  Not that anything could have been.  Not that anything can happen now.  French is good at shutting doors, eliminating options, streamlining, barrelling forward.





	Tide

Buck is quiet, he is always so quiet and French kills the engine after they pull over on the side of the road. They’re about ten minutes from Buck’s house and this weekend he knows that Buck is moving, that there won’t be any more rides back from choir practice which he has (in)conveniently forced to coincide with his after school studies, any more quiet jokes and chats and this beating thing. No more time. 

He knows that Buck is thinking about that too and after they’ve stopped for a few seconds Buck looks at him, in the quiet way he has about him and asks, probably because he feels he needs to “Are you excited for next year?”

He’s not. He feels like he’s lost the grip he had before, that he is veering, dangerously, the last few weeks and there is nothing he can do to get control back. He doesn’t answer because he doesn’t want to put that on Buck – knowing Buck will take that heaviness from him without question, immediately, into his soul, into his bones.

“You should be careful with yourself.” Is what he does say and Buck looks at him with a small frown, unsure and taken aback. “Out there, you know, when you leave. Don’t let people get to you.” Buck stares at him and he knows that he should have used different words, said it better. Or at least said what he wanted to say – which is that he is worried for Buck, even more than he is worried for all of them, because Buck makes him worry more. And he knows why.  
“French, are you okay?” Buck asks, his voice so soft and so even that it doesn’t, sound, feel normal – it feels like it is spoken in his heart. “I’m not sure.” 

It is easy to be honest with Buck, so easy – which is one of the things that scare him the most about Buck, and about himself.

He wasn’t going to say it, ever, but he feels he has to, he has to put some kind of barrier there, not for his own protection, but for Buck’s “I hooked up with Jonah.” And Buck doesn’t balk or blink away immediately, and the two or three seconds before French feels Buck’s gaze move from his face to the setting darkness beyond the window is an eternity of shame churning inside of his gut. “Jonah.” Buck says, his voice still even, but perhaps a little raised now, “like basket ball Jonah? Jonah Loman?” There is a sour lump in his throat. “Yeah. He’s, like, curious.” 

And then Buck doesn’t say anything at all and the darkness filling up the car is drowning him, them, and all hope of whatever could have been. Not that anything could have been. Not that anything can happen now. French is good at shutting doors, eliminating options, streamlining, barrelling forward.

“Jonah is a nice guy.” Buck says eventually with a voice that is light but on tiptoe, carefully stepping over the broken things beneath and French’s heart swells painfully with sharp regret, so much so that he can’t stop himself from exhaling a shaky, bitter sigh. He has held on to so much, his heart is heavy and strained. “It wasn’t what I expected, or like…it wasn’t even what I hoped.” He says. Because it’s true. Because around Buck the truth leaks out.

“Yeah?” Buck asks and he is a million miles away already, French can hear it, see it, in the way that Buck’s eyes are glazed – defeated. Everything gets out of hand so fast these days.

“Honestly, I wish she never came here.” French says and just saying it feels like scooping broken glass up from the floor. It’s necessary given the circumstances, but it cuts. “I don’t.” Buck answers, resolute – and it is exactly expected. Buck is unwavering, always.  
And looking at Buck now, his skin olive in the dying light, French feels the familiar, guilty need to run his hand along Buck’s cheek, to the back of his neck – hold it there – hold them both there – to for a moment share in Buck’s stillness, and breathe.

So he says it, because it is getting dark and there is no more time “I love your voice.” Buck looks at him again, and this time his eyes bring a wash of light that he can feel right through his jacket, the warmth spreading through his veins. It’s what he thinks people mean when they talk about a holy experience – that touch of something almost otherworldly. It is bolstering, like water and air and maybe even love, so he goes on “That night, when you sang and I was watching you. Your voice is…I don’t know how to…” 

“Then why do you wish she never came.” Buck is calling him out and the moment is slipping away, so rapidly that his heart is ready to beat right out of his chest. He tries, desperate for this not to pass “I would have gotten to know you without her.” But it’s an obvious lie and to Buck’s credit he doesn’t roll his eyes, or even smirk.  
He holds his gaze on French, steady.  
“You say things to get around other things, French. It’s not fair.”  
The words feel hard coming from Buck, landing like a punch to the gut.

The silence is thick and the insecurities that he shoves back inside, every day, is pressing up against his skin, swallowing him. “Ever since she left things have just gotten really fucked up.” He looks away from Buck. “More fucked up that it was before, which I thought was impossible.”  
It feels like an explanation, or as close to one that he can get. 

Yes, his words skirt around, pointing to something else, hollow and redundant, while his heart holds beat with the time that is running out. “Buck. Come Monday, you’re gone.” 

And then Buck’s hand is warm and when he feels it on his own, cold and gripping the stick-shift, white at the knuckles.  
“Why wasn’t it what you hoped. With Jonah?” This time Buck’s voice is almost inaudible – and the lilt of it so heart-breakingly unsure that French would burn the world down, would do anything for Buck, not to hear that uncertainty again. 

So he says it – he doesn’t step over it, or walk around it – he says it - the beating thing that pushed through everything else and that has been blooming painfully inside, ever since she came.  
“Because it wasn’t you.” 

With Buck, around Buck, he thinks about when OA spoke about Homer, about putting her fingers to the glass that separated them – he thinks about a current pulling him along an invisible sea – drawing him in, Buck’s voice, Buck’s eyes, Buck’s heart. He has no control in this rapid tide swaying him along. “And I know it should be you.” He says in a surge of frightening confidence and Buck’s lips part, perhaps in surprise but the next breath they take is together, his hand on the back of Buck’s small neck, Buck’s hands warm on his own, and the wave rushes them together as Buck gasps into the second kiss.

With Jonah it was hurried, hands pushing, the smell of lube and Jonah pushing back against him, lining up the head of his cock and taking him in rushed, slick and rutting back. He came because it was sex, because it was the first time, because Jonah was hot, and breathing low and grunting with every thrust. It was sex, just sex.

With Buck it is different.

Buck feels weightless as he straddles French’s lap – but his body is strong, moving close and pressing down against French’s groin, his cock which was instantly hard at the kiss, is heavy and straining against his jeans. And Buck’s tongue, warm and sweet, licks against his as French unbuckles Buck’s belt, pushing it down at the back to slide his hands inside – Buck’s skin soft, so soft – down the parting of his cheeks and to the small entrance there – puckered under the light touch of his finger. “I’ve never.” Buck says as he arches his back inadvertently, pressing himself against French’s touch again and French’s skin feels like fire, his heart strumming “I’ll do whatever you want. Tell me what you want.”

To that Buck puts his face to French’s neck and his voice is tentative, but straining with something else, something heady and restless – a want that shoots straight to French’s cock. “I want everything.” 

Outside the night is dark and their breath has started to mist up the windows. When he first presses a spit slick finger slowly past the muscle Buck keens quietly, moving slightly – thighs parted over French’s lap, and the sound is so electric that French has to pause with a quick intake of air, has to grip his cock through his jeans with his other hand. Buck puts his forehead, sweat beaded to French’s and French drinks in the kiss that follows like it is water in the desert, his finger sliding, gently, inside and Buck breathes out, undulating his hips in a way that is pure sin.  
Later, with the slick crinkle of a condom and Buck’s sweet moan, he pulls Buck’s hips down as he pushes up into that impossible tightness. The world is night and stars and Buck’s chin, his warm neck, his back taut and the increasing ebb and flow of movement – the shush that falls when he is deep inside and the aching pull that follows. 

The day comes too soon and they are lying close, his arms locked around Buck’s shoulders, holding him to his chest. Buck is asleep, his face as innocent as morning sun and strikingly at odds with the smell of sex in the car, the stain on Buck’s shirt from when French came the second time in the grip of Buck’s fist. When he moves to sit up Buck is awake, pressing himself back into the passenger chair, blinking against the light. The quiet that fills the car is sombre and French opens the window – letting the world, the panic of reality, slide inside. “You have to get home.” French says and he feels tears in the back of his throat as he swallows down hard, presses it all back and away.  
Although he can’t unsay what he said and he can’t unfeel what he felt, what he is feeling - it doesn’t matter. Their time is up. 

When he looks at Buck, there is a beat of such utter hurt before Buck looks away that the guilt lodges sharp, permanent, in his heart.

He starts the car.


End file.
